Gingrich Foreign Policy is Bush/Cheney 2.0

What would would the foreign policy of a Newt Gingrich presidency look like? Just ask his team of foreign policy advisers.

David Wurmser: Gingrich’s Middle East policy adviser was a notorious member of Vice President Cheney’s inner circle that pushed the U.S. into war in Iraq. Once he was questioned during an espionage probe while in the vice president’s office, and he was one of the names driving the initial support for the later disgraced Ahmed Chalabi.

James Woosley: A former director of the CIA, Woolsey recently spoke at a panel hosted by the founder of Judicial Watch focused on President Obama’s “political jihad promoting Islam around the world.” Woolsey is a serious Iran hawk, warning that the way the West is dealing with the nation at the moment “rhymes with what was taking place in the 1930s [with Nazi Germany]”.

Stephen Yates: Another ex-Cheney national security team member, Yates is known among other things for his work on China. One former U.S. ambassador to China familiar with Yates says he views “China as the solution to ‘enemy deprivation syndrome.’” As Counterpunch explained the theory, “You need some unifying enemy after the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

The foreign policy of a Gingrich administration would essentially be a continuation of the Dick Cheney foreign policy agenda of saber-rattling and warmongering and the Bush Doctrine which advocates preemptive invasion.

The other Republican presidential candidates have their own vague connections to the Neo-Con agenda, but Gingrich's staff literally is the Bush/Cheney team. And it's just as easy to picture Newt Gingrich saying "So?" as it is Dick Cheney, isn't it?

Both parties are the same though so it doesn't matter who you vote for, right? Give me a break.

“Both parties are the same though so it doesn’t matter who you vote for, right? Give me a break.”

Solid point, JM.

Then again, according to a certain Mr. Greenwald, Obama already IS Bush/Cheney 2.0, and apparently has been since, or rather, even before he took the office of President. Of course, the evidence offered by Greenwald is, to put it nicely, a bucket of warmed-over shit, but it hasn’t stopped people from believing that Greenwald’s accusation is valid.

villemar

By the way, I had the misfortune of scrolling thru Glenn Greenbeck’s tweets, and about a week ago he was promulgating the idea (I think as a response to Chait’s piece) that HUEY LONG pushed FDR to the left. Huey fucking Long! Lol, next he’ll tell us that Robespierre pushed the Framers to adopt the Bill of Rights. What a dipshit.

By the way, back in college I did a project on Huey Long and Father Coughlin, based on the book “Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, & the Great Depression” by Alan Brinkley. It’s a fascinating read. I even interviewed someone that served as the jailer for some members of Long’s puppet governor’s staff (after he’d been assassinated).

“You need some unifying enemy after the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

Can’t comment on this without a Godwin violation. At least they have enough self-awareness to realize that the only way they can get get their shitty policies past the American people is by distracting them with an external enemy.

But damn, those neocons really love war, don’t they. So long as some else does the fighting.

Scopedog

“But damn, those neocons really love war, don’t they. So long as some else does the fighting.”

Very true.

Still…wonder if we’re going to hear some bit of nonsense about how “Obama did the same thing and kept Bush’s Neocons (or the people that, under Bush, helped screw things up), so he’s just as bad or worse than Gingrich?”

Just wondering, mind you.

villemar

Classic Straussianism. Best deliniated in The Power of Nightmares http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares and Shadia Drury’s excellent book “Leo Strauss and the American Right.” Basically the idea that America must define itself by a singular enemy that the people can rally against, be it the Soviet Union, Bill Clinton, Al-Qaeda, or Barack Obama. There must be a grand arch-villain to give our lives meaning.

http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com/ IrishGrrrl

I wonder how much this need for a “singular enemy” goes back to the predominance of a black or white, aka, absolutist worldview the country started out with…you know the puritan’s contribution to our national insanity. Or is it the result of several generations conditioned to expect a “singular enemy” beginning with WWII and Germany and continued by our opposition to Communism in the 50’s. Or is it is just an aspect of human nature? We do see this tactic of rallying popular opinion in other countries and we know that there is an efficacy in psychology of separating us v. them in order to deal with conflict (pardon the clinical description here). What we don’t see is this kind of behavior in mostly peaceful, industrialized nations….it seems only in the U.S., arguably the world’s most advanced culture in many ways, can often be it’s most primitive too.

villemar

Well I think Leo Strauss is unique in that, while in the past we and other countries have used propaganda against our enemies and framing thing as us being good and them being evil, Strauss just dispenses entirely of what we stand for, or what makes us good in the first place. Its not Manicheanism, it’s just anti-whovever we label as evil at the time, specifically so we can manage people through fear and fear alone. It’s insanely nihilistic.

Strauss is the father of Neoconservatism and Stephen Yates’ comment about China fits exactly within this ideology.

http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com/ IrishGrrrl

I agree about Strauss and Yates’ comment….ultimately I think the natural us v. them mentality evolved because of people like Strauss into Neoconservatism….I hope and pray that this approach will be as despised as all the other public policy philosophies that rely on fear and manipulation as opposed to knowledgeable consent.

villemar

Well, the good news is that because the Bush wars backfired so spectacularly, those people have been discredited. The bad news is they just put all of that Straussian demonization onto Obama, Wouldn’t be a problem per say in 2012 considering the sad state of the GOP field but the Professional Left has bought into this manichean vision that Obama is the Antichrist.

http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com/ IrishGrrrl

You know I thought I knew about different religions and I had never heard of manichaeism!! Just had to look it up. In re: the Pro Left considering Pres. O the “antichrist”…as we’ve all discussed on this site before…it mystifies me that anyone who despises the right would oppose him, because like it or not, he will be the nominee. I am beginning to think the Pro Left are actually wolves in sheep’s clothing.

http://www.facebook.com/rycarson Ryan Carson

Ah Woosley! I couldn’t find the Ali G clip on Youtube where SBC interviews him as Ali G, unfortunately.

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